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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

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Gospel text (Mk 11,11-25): (…) They came to Jerusalem, and on entering the temple area he began to drive out those selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. He did not permit anyone to carry anything through the temple area. Then he taught them saying, “Is it not written: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples? But you have made it a den of thieves.” The chief priests and the scribes came to hear of it and were seeking a way to put him to death, yet they feared him because the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city (…).

Jesus, the "New Temple" of the "new Israel". Universality of salvation (the Church is "catholic")

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, after the "cleansing" of the Temple, Jesus "taught": «My House shall be called the House of prayer for all the peoples (...)». In this synthesis of Jesus’ "teaching" on the Temple, two different prophetic words appear as cast.

First, the universality of which Isaiah’s prophecy speaks (56:7): in the future, in the House of God, all peoples will worship the Lord as one God. Although Jesus consciously limits to Israel His intervention, He is always moved by the universality trend to "open" Israel, so that all can recognize in the God of Israel the one and only God all over the world. Second, Jeremiah’s words (cf. 7:11): «You have made my house into a den of robbers», appears intertwined. Jeremiah is an impassioned advocate of the unity of worship and life in the context of divine justice; he fights against a "Jewish" politicization of the faith and the temple…

—Jesus, You are the "New Temple" where we all find God and also, where we all find ourselves in God.